


Fun kind of crazy

by von_gikkingen



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Black Panther (2018), Precognition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:48:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26766787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: “Here we go again,” sighs Klaue, negating the dramatic silence that falls over the room with my words. And actually rolls his eyes when I turn to glare at him. “You’ve seen things. We get it.”
Relationships: Ulysses Klaue/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 10





	Fun kind of crazy

“No,” I say the second I register the pressure of someone’s fingers on my shoulder. 

In an immediate flash of insight I know that the man about to ask me to quiet down is a clear threat, not just to me but to every last person in the room. His skin is a graveyard. All scars, this killer, and he has still more to add before he’s done avenging himself on the world. 

I know I can easily become the next one. He will not hesitate to kill me where I stand. Do I take that in consideration when choosing my next words? I do _not_. Self-preservation comes easier when one has something to live for and personally I am all out of reasons to want to keep breathing. 

“Keep your hand to yourself or lose it,” I tell him, calmly enough. 

It’s as far as I get before I hear the not unexpected exclamation. From someone who would find that phrasing distasteful, granted. Being short of a limb and all that... 

“What?” I say, turning to Klaue who of course looks equal part amused and ready to escalate things towards violence at the slightest excuse. Or without one. 

“Do you think you can take it down a notch?” he asks me through a smirk. 

“Do you think you can stop sending over your henchmen to tell me to calm down? And keep in mind that if the answer is no you’re getting the next one back in a bodybag.” 

Which is one hell of a threat to make considering the latest henchman he told to go find out what the hell is my problem this time is still towering over me and is more dangerous than all the rest of us put together. Already glancing to the South African with unspoken question about whether he can snap my neck and be done with it.

There’s something about how sure he is about how this is going to play out that I dislike. Enough to do the thing I usually do when dealing with these thugs... 

“I’ve seen empires turn to dust,” I snarl at him. “I’ve seen Asgard burn, boy. You do _not_ scare me.” 

As ever, I say those highly implausible things in a way that makes people struggle to dismiss them. It’s the haunted look in my eyes. It marks me as someone who did see all I claim, and worse. Someone who knows exactly what doom awaits in our future. So yes, it takes a lot more than a slightly too prolific killer to scare me... 

“Here we go again,” sighs Klaue, negating the dramatic silence that falls over the room with my words. And actually rolls his eyes when I turn to glare at him. “You’ve _seen things_. We get it. You can still keep the volume down when you’re talking to yourself.” 

“I...” 

I catch myself, doing a double take of what he just said.

Well, that almost justified the whole sending his mercenaries to politely ask me to shut it... “Was I doing that again...?” I frown. 

“And if we needed a reminder of how badly that frostgiant messed you up...” 

An utterly asshole thing to say so of course he couldn’t bring himself not to. Phrased it that way just to see my flinch at the word _frostgiant_ , I just know. 

Were I any more steady on my feet I’d already be crossing the distance between us and wiping that smirk off his face. But even at my most sober and lucid I wouldn’t have managed, would I...? Not with his newest employee of the month still hovering near. No way _Killmonger_ will ever let me get close enough. His position is still too precarious for him to be able to afford to slip up like that. He’s all about establishing himself as capable and trustworthy – and if removing the nuisance I’m becoming will help that I’m as good as dead. 

I know this. I know what he’s thinking with the same painful certainty with which I know Asgard will soon be nothing but space debris. 

The problem isn’t that I’ve _seen things_. It’s that I continue to see things. To _know_ things that should never be known.

One touch and I know secrets that were never spoken out loud, things hidden so deep not even the person that harbours them truly knows them. But _I_ do. And all that knowledge? All that horrible insight? It's been poisoning my sanity ever since the day Loki left Earth. 

Ever since he decided I’ll make a fine addition to his brainwashed little army, really. One touch of his sceptre, a single moment spent too close to that impossible singularity giving the weapon its power and my mind broke. Expanded. Transmutated. Became receptive to the world in a wholly different way. 

For better or worse, I knew. I knew _everything_. And god, did I not wish that even on my worst enemies. 

That’s why with just a touch I knew that this stranger, the man seemingly not that different from all the other expendable hired guns Klaue surrounded himself with, was going to become everything he ever imagined himself to be. I saw him, as he will be. On a throne. 

All I had to do is to say a few words and destroy the element of surprise he needs to succeed. But the words won't come. I'm not going to take his revenge away from him any more than I'm going to track down the god of thunder and warn him about his sister or let the Avengers know about the mad titan they're going to lose to someday. 

Interfering like that just isn’t my style. Talking to myself about all those fated, inevitable events? _That_ is far more my speed. 

The mad oracle whose words no one understands until it's too late, that's me. That was the role I resigned myself to playing not long after I was freed from Loki’s influence – and almost immediately declared unfit to continue to work for SHIELD due to mental instability. 

I didn’t even argue that. How could I? Didn’t even know how to lie to myself about not being all the things they said I was. And a few years later I found myself here, drinking what was left of my sanity away and proving them all right with every word out of my mouth. _Unstable_. Yes, that really was the only way to describe what I’ve become. 

“Oh come on,” says the South African suddenly, even as he does the ill-advised thing of taking a step closer. And what about my expression – the mix of despair and self-disgust – told him that was a good idea I can’t imagine. “So the future is just chaos and destruction. How does that make it any different from the past? Take it as your permission to do whatever the hell you want.” 

The worst part is it eally almost sounds well-meaning. For the horrible, horrible advice it is. “Not everyone can do the kind of psychotic nihilism you live by,” I reply, rolling my eyes at him. For the first time really wondering what the hell am I even doing, talking to him. Having an actual conversation with someone who is an embodiment of the worst the humanity has to offer. 

Not that _I’m_ some shining example of a person who has their shit together... “Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll just go do my _end is nigh_ thing somewhere else.”

Because for once standing down feels preferable to the alternative. 

It’s not like me to react to people telling me to keep it down with the drama with anything other than even more drama, normally. But I don’t feel up to going full prophet of doom right now. 

Besides, what could I tell this stone cold psycho...? He provoked me into letting him know he’ll die alone and go unmourned long before tonight. All the reaction he had to that was a _yeah, that sounds about right_ expression that let me know he never expected for things to go any other way.

“Or you can maybe not talk about how the world is ending? Just for a change,” he suggests as I’m walking by him. 

“Yeah, and maybe you can go twenty-four hours without threatening to blow people to pieces with that thing,” I reply, nodding my head to indicate his prosthetic. That we all know is hiding some ridiculously powerful weapon, in a lot of cases because we found it pointed at us at some point in the last few weeks. “Let’s not start pretending we’re the kind of people that can behave,” I add with an expansive gesture including every last person in this gathering place for villains and other human garbage. That I do not stand out in, and isn’t that a depressing thought... 

But a depressing thought that gets me moving towards the door again and that's probably for the best. 

***

“You still here, crazy...?” 

I don’t bother to reply. It’s no big secret that I loiter in the back rooms whenever I need a break from the company of the usual clientele. Because actually leaving this place has become beyond me. Where else would I go...? 

“Of course you are. Where else would you go?” adds Klaue in a casually cruel tone when he locates me in a distant corner of the room. “We’re the only people that’ll have you.” 

“I’m very aware of just how downhill my life went. Really don’t need you to spell it out for me,” I say, knowing full well I can’t possibly stop him. He’ll say whatever the hell he wants if he feels like it. Just to hurt me. Just to be hurting someone, anyone, because cruelty is just what he has to offer to the world.

“Fair enough,” he surprises me by saying instead. And next thing I know he’s sitting down next to me. Extending a hand holding a bottle of amber liquid before I even get the chance to ask what the hell. 

“And there’s absolutely no chance you put something in this,” I comment wryly, even as I take it. 

“Would I have to?” 

I want to ask him what the fuck did he just say. I want to – but I can’t. I’m laughing too damn hard to be forming words. 

Laughing the way one only laughs at things that are in no way funny, that are so goddamn horrible that an outburst of uncontrollable laughter is about the only way there is to react to them. I actually have to wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes – and not the kind I’d be shedding if I really thought about how long it's been since I found anything funny... 

“You might be the worst human being I’ve ever met,” I tell him. 

“You should probably get out more then.” 

Shaking my head I take another long sip from the bottle before handing it back to him. Because I think I want to be drunk for this. Whatever this is. I have the horrible suspicion that he just wants someone to talk to – and that would make him a lot more human than I ever want to think of him as. I think I’d almost prefer if he sought me out because he was horny enough to forget literally everything he knows about me.

“What?” he says, catching me frowning at him. 

“Why are you here?” 

“It’s a place to be,” he shrugs. “View’s nice,” he adds in the next breath, his eyes straying to my breasts. 

“Is there any point in telling you my eyes are up here...?” 

All I get in a way of answer is a lecherous grin, before he takes a swig from the bottle and offers it to me again. 

“You really think you can get me drunk enough,” I realize. Pretty sure I should feel insulted by that assumption – but I’m more likely to just start laughing again. Because he absolutely _does_ think that. It’s all over his face. 

“Doesn’t seem like you have all that much self-respect left,” he shrugs. “You keep drinking what’s left of it away...” 

He just leaves it at that, the unfinished sentence hanging between us. And I don’t know how to argue with that observation. A little too spot on for me to be able to dispute it. 

“You do know I’m not...”

“Not what...?” he says when I fall silent rather than say the only words I can say here. 

“Not the fun kind of crazy,” I reply, making a face. 

“Yes, well... That’s only because you’re not crazy, isn’t it?” 

That startles me. There was always something in the way he treated to me that made me assume he, like so many others, thought what Loki did to me drove me mad. Someone who might see visions of horrible futures, but that didn’t make her clairvoyant. Just broken. To realize he actually knew me for the real thing was... strange. To say the least. Before I really started thinking about it. “Oh my god,” I find myself saying, staring at him as the realization hits me. “You think it’s going to save you time...” 

“Isn’t it?” 

And just like that I feel like laughing again.

I don’t. Somehow I manage to resist. And when next I reach for the bottle I’m not bothering to be careful enough not to let my fingers brush against his. Because, sure, let’s not waste time here. Let’s just see what future this moment is leading to and... 

... and an involuntary moan escapes me as soon as I see. “What was _that_...?” he asks me, grinning. 

“Turns out you were right. That _does_ save time,” I reply. My words a soft whisper, spoken for my benefit rather than his. Because they needed saying. I needed to hear myself say them. 

I only hesitate for a moment before I put the bottle down, leave it where it’s going to stay, undrunk. Further intoxication is not necessary, not when I find myself drunk on the future. 

“What did you see?” he asks, frowning. More so as I move closer with what must seem like no warning. 

Well, if that was enough to startle him he’s really in for a surprise... 

“Kiss me,” I say. Just that. Two breathless words he clearly has trouble with because this must seem to him coming out of nowhere. Because, sure, some part of him did believe he can get me drunk enough to do something this stupid – but no way could he have imagined it going this way. 

I didn’t imagine my future coming to this either, for what it’s worth. But having seen it, having _felt_ it, I don’t know how to resist it. I really don’t... 

Waiting for the last few seconds between me and the painfully desirable future I just foresaw to elapse, I know what he can’t possibly suspect. I know what that first whiskey-tasting kiss will feel like. How it’ll be the end of it for me – his tongue finding mine, his fingers tangled in my hair and all my inhibitions gone, forgotten, just like that. 

“Don’t stop,” I tell him when he breaks the contact after just a few too brief seconds, even more uncertain now than he was before. “Trust me – you want this.” 

“That was never a question,” he says. And still there’s a distance between us because all the things he sees in my face now, all that raw lust, is just too hard to reconcile with the person he knows me to be. “But...” 

“No point fighting the future,” I say only, silencing him with my lips before he has the chance to answer that problematic statement. 

I’m not giving him a chance to ask if he just heard that right. I’m too impatient to have that conversation. Too impatient to have any more talking when I already know there are better ways to communicate things between us. 

Between the naked need in my voice and the way my eyes can keep no secrets about how much we’re both going to enjoy what’s about to happen I’m giving him all the reasons to stop questioning this. To forget all about just how strange a turn this is for us and let it happen. 

I can see it in the way he looks at me, the exact moment when he asks himself why the hell he’s hesitating to take what I’m suddenly so eager to give. The exact moment he realizes he has no good answer to that question and stops holding back. 

And just like that we’re too far into the future I foresaw to escape it. And oh, I do _not_ want to escape. I want every touch I’ve been promised, every last expression of the lust he feels for me. I want him with a desperation that doesn’t allow me to remember who he is, what a despicable human being I’m fighting to get out of his clothes. I can’t let those things matter. I’m not letting them take this from me. Not when I know my desire is heightened by just how long it’s been since I let anyone this close. 

There is no awkwardness in the way we touch each other, nothing to betray the fact we’re just two drunk strangers unused to one another. And even as I’m thinking that I’m breaking the silence between us with a moan I just can’t hold back.

I can feel his lips curve into a smile where they press against my neck and new certainties flood my mind. In that moment I know this is not the regrettable one time thing it should be. It will happen again.

We’ll get to have this again, the same hunger, the same willingness to meet the other’s need with no reservations. 

I live through those moments in glimpses of premonition even as he’s still running his fingers over my skin for the very first time. Overwhelmed by the sensation, the closeness that’s been gone from my life for such a painfully long time I can do very little about the soft, pleased sounds leaving my lips. 

With every second my breathing grows more ragged, the sound of blood in my ears becoming thunder. Even foreseeing the nights he’s going to come to me feeling mean and only too willing to take it out on me I’m finding myself perfectly content with this moment. Knowing what’s ahead doesn’t scare me for once. I can meet that future and make it mine – learn how to distract him from his crueller desires, learn how to make him satisfied with caresses even if all he wants to do is bite. I can do that. I know I can. We’re equals in how powerless we are in the other’s hands. 

We’ve done nowhere near thorough enough job of undressing but to delay any longer isn’t something I can do and I’m wrapping my legs around his waist – an act of impatience that makes him laugh even as he’s doing what I just stopped short of asking him, begging him to do.

I can find nothing but pleasure in this, the weight of him on top of me, the warm breath on my skin, the hardness driving into me with such urgency. My heartbeat grows almost painfully fast in the fervour of the friction between us. Moments pass, feverish, exhausting moments that take my mind away from it all. Free me from this horrible weight I’ve been carrying. I’m not burdened with foreknowledge of things to come, I’m just a body tangled with another body, unable and unwilling to be anything more. Just this. Just the unceasing, rhythmic movement that’s already causing me arch my back, to dig my nails into his shoulders as I writhe in climax. 

A thousand visions flood my mind in that too-brief second of perfect joy, too confusing to mean anything. A thousand futures that I care nothing about. There is only now and I’m not giving it up so I can have my mind poisoned with yet more premonitions. 

He says something then, words I don’t quite catch. Words whispered into my hair as he continues to move against me. Not far from satisfied himself, I foresee as much. I start moving my hips in response to him again, slower and with less urgency now that I’ve gotten what I needed. Still I rouse myself to match his movements. Find a different kind of satisfaction in this, the repaying of what he just gave me. 

And then it’s over. The perfectly improbable moment my broken mind has promised me but _I_ turned into reality by accepting the future, heading right into it of my own volition rather than awaiting it with dread. 

It’s over and the moment that follows, the moment that’s made for regrets and doubt, settles over us. 

I glance at him, rolled onto his back now and breathing heavily. And it’s so hard not to think of what he said earlier, about what little is left of my self-respect. 

I _should_ respect myself less over this. One look at him, all those tattoos and that feral grin, and I should be only thinking about fleeing this room and everything that happened in it. But things are a long way from being what they should be and all I can do is match his grin with my own. 

I don’t need my mind’s ability to perceive time out of order to tell me what’s going to happen when I pull my shirt down to cover my breasts. The annoyed sound he makes is nothing if not predictable. “Yeah, I know. You like the view,” I sigh, slowly raising myself up on my elbows. 

Too sore and exhausted to be looking around for the rest of my clothes just yet - but figuring out where they are still feels like something I should prioritize. Because everything just happened so fast, held my attention so thoroughly, that I have to come to terms with my environment all over again. The hardness of the floor I’m laying on that I didn’t even register while otherwise occupied is quickly becoming something I’m very aware of. The pleasant warmth permeating my muscles doesn’t change the fact that I do need to get dressed. Even if it will mean still more complaints from him. Perhaps understandable – what happened too quickly became about touch and taste. We were feeling our way around. It’s only now that he’s getting a good look at me. And starting to question what exactly possessed me to throw myself at him the way I did, going by his expression.

“Stop it,” I say as he runs his eyes over me. Glancing away because I don’t think I can say the rest while facing him. “No need to try to commit this to memory. If you think you’re never going to have the real thing again, well... I have some good news for you.” 

“Really...?” he says, sitting up to bring himself on eyelevel with me. Taking me by the chin to make me face him. 

“Oh, how many times...” I say with just a touch of real exasperation. “ _I can see the future_.” 

He just laughs. For once not pointing out just how crazy it sounds that out of all the people that have been under the frostgiant’s influence I’m the only one that walked away with permanent side effects. For once just too certain in my powers to question them.

“And the future sucks,” I add, unable to stop myself. Feeling a sudden, overwhelming desire to move closer. To bury my face in his neck and say nothing more. Because I feel too good to force myself to say the rest and remind myself what my life is actually like. What rarity it is to feel anything but constant dread of the things I know will come to pass. “It’s a miracle to find any part of it that doesn’t make me want to scream.” 

He opens his mouth, thinks better of whatever highly inappropriate response he had to that, and closes it again. And how can I not move closer to press myself against him then? 

There’s almost no lust behind my action, I just want to feel the warmth of being held by another human being, just for a moment. There’s just a moment of hesitation before his arm is around me, fingers running down my back – a gesture that would be almost one of comfort if only he didn’t immediately slip them under the fabric of my shirt, finding the bare skin underneath. “What?” he says when I pull away to give him a look. “You’re the one who said we’re doing this again.” 

“I didn’t mean tonight, you maniac,” I roll my eyes. But I do follow the words with a kiss. Even if it’s just a precaution. Just a way of making sure he does _not_ say whatever his answer to that was. “Now get dressed.” 

“Because...?”

“Someone is going to walk in on us in less than a minute. Now, I don’t know how comfortable you are being naked around your henchmen...” 

I am back in my jeans by the time the door opens, if still fighting one of my shoes back onto my foot. Almost decent for all that it’s still very easy to guess what just happened. My cheeks are still flushed, my hair a tangled mess and I’m pretty sure there is a telltale gleam in my eyes. “Not a goddamn word,” I say when the tall black man in Klaue’s employ opens his mouth to offer some kind of comment. “Not one. Or _I’ll_ be adding a new scar tonight.” 

“The hell does that mean?” frowns the South African, giving me a confused look. Of course. It’s going to be a while yet before he gets _that_ punchline... 

“He knows what it means,” I say, nodding my head towards Killmonger. Who does look plenty spooked by my remark. Good. That’s gonna make this a lot more bearable. Because I don’t regret a thing, I really don’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting anyone else have an opinion. Especially not some homicidal lackey. 

Not that I doubt he has one. And will voice it as soon as I’m out of hearing. There’s something about the almost impressed look he aims at Klaue that makes it a certainty. 

Like so many moments I’ll not be present for it still finds its way into my mind. Minute in the future, not more. Just as I’m walking out the door and onto the street bathed in pre-dawn light. I see them exchange a look that speaks volumes. I can hear the words... 

“Damn, boss. There’s the fun kind of crazy and then there’s whatever _that_ is.” 

“She's not crazy. She _is_ fun, though...”

I can hear him laugh. I can hear the echo of the sound from a moment that haven’t happened yet. It warms me, that rough, harsh sound. As unpleasant as I once found it I enjoy it now, that sheer amusement of it.

He’s still an evil bastard but as I walk away that is no longer something that matters to me. Because I might not be crazy but Klaue? Yeah, he most certainly is. The fun kind, too. And I deserve some goddamn fun... 


End file.
